I haven't cried yet over the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. I
guess one reason is because I didn't know anything about him. I just found
out that he was the only son of the late, great President John F. Kennedy.

I am sad though. I'm sad because I didn't know him. I didn't know how
he felt about the vision his dad had for this country. I also didn't know
if he had the desire, the passion or the anointing to continue that vision.
This was a vision birthed during one of the most intense periods of America,
where his dad dared to challenge all of us to, "Ask not what this country
can do for you but what you can do for this country."

I was 7 years old when JFK was assassinated. It was the first time I
ever saw my parents cry. It took years, the death of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. and the death of Senator Robert Kennedy, for me to see the same
intensity of those tears from them again. And since.

My parents grew up in the segregated south. They sheltered me and my
brothers and sisters from the pain of this historic American experience
by my dad going into the Air Force and finally settling in the north. But
JFK was his hero.

President Kennedy was a hero for millions of black men like my dad because
his agenda wasn't about handouts; but about personal integrity, responsibility,
excellence and equal access to opportunity. Perhaps life today in black
America would be different if JFK, Jr. were old enough to have been the
successor of this legacy.

Instead we got the vision of a "Great Society" as termed by
President Lyndon B. Johnson: welfare, forced busing and government-controlled
affirmative action. It was almost as if the Johnson Administration misread
JFK's edict to say, "What you can do for the country is pay excessive
income taxes so that the government can pretend to do for you."

The lesson for me in the tragedy of the death of John F. Kennedy, Jr.
is to work while it is today. I need to make sure that a sense of purpose
is established in my every effort of influencing my kids, developing my
career and building my personal relationships. It grieves me to hear from
news commentators that John Jr. may have had political ambitions but that
he thought he had time to postpone this call until sometime in the future.
I still have such goals.

Maybe one reason so many strangers to John Jr, his wife and her sister
gathered at his old residence to mourn is because this type of emotional
expression will keep them for thinking about the finality of life. If they
think too hard about purpose and the future, they might have to think about
the infinite in this age of moral relativism. How sobering, and scary.

"Has anybody here seen my old friend John, can you tell me where
he has gone? He freed a lot of people but it seems the good they die young,
Abraham, Martin, John." And now John Jr.

###

(Star Parker is a member of Project 21's National Advisory Board and
president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education. She can be
reached at [email protected].)

Note: New Visions Commentaries reflect the views of their
author, and not necessarily those of Project 21.